c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ Plunging stock prices stir colorful language and graphic fears.

Strong words like”crash,””hemorrhage”and”panic”accompany photos of distraught Wall Street traders gasping as the bull market collapses. Stock owners who rode the Dow through one ceiling after another saw their portfolios drop 10 percent in two days recently and wonder now when the slide will stop.

Millions discover their personal wealth is less tangible than they thought. In the absence of buyers, common stocks look more like paper and less like a golden future. Organizations trying to raise charitable funds in the fall _ like churches, colleges and community ministries _ wish stock markets chose a month other than October to”correct”inflated values.

But the crisis at hand goes beyond money. It is spiritual and it has to do with fragility. Despite our best efforts to control reality, life remains a fragile enterprise. How we handle that fragility will shape our futures more than stock values will.

My generation entered adulthood with the sobering discovery that presidents, public figures, even rock stars could be snuffed. We watched gasoline suddenly disappear in the early 1970s, jobs in the 1980s and entire companies in the 1990s. We saw cities explode and erode, small towns go sour, and suburbs prove unruly and vacuous.

Parents worry about their children’s safety at school and are forced to fight predatory influences like commercial television, Internet pornography and tobacco companies.

Then there was the car that suddenly pulled into my path in a 55 mph zone. And the friend who suddenly lost her job. And the telephone call informing me a houseguest was in the emergency room.

We’re like the ancient Hebrews in the Sinai wilderness. Every day is uncertain, and our homes are tents. Like our spiritual forebears, we can go one of two ways: We can learn to trust in God and not in golden calves, or we can turn mean and petulant.

So far, mean and petulant seem to be winning.

Local politics reflect our surging meanness. Negative campaigning is the norm because it works by tapping our need to blame. School board elections aren’t even subtle nowadays in their exploitation of racial antagonism.

Corporate environments are filled with fear. Despite regular seminars by teamwork gurus, workers respond to production shortfalls or lost sales by shifting the blame. Finger-pointing replaces problem-solving, resume enhancement replaces sacrifice, and would-be”saviors”wield axes, not solutions.

Most disturbing to me is meanness and petulance in the religious community. Much of the religious revival in America seems grounded in a harvesting of dissatisfaction. Like burglar alarm merchants, splinter churches play to people’s fears and make scapegoats of homosexuals, women and modernity. In the name of one whose arms opened wide to all humanity, churches build walls and invite the fearful to retreat behind them.

In the short run, anger and a sense of superiority will build attendance. But when anger fails to nourish the soul, anger tends to escalate and to seek new targets, turning eventually against its own advocates.

In our personal lives, wilderness experiences tend to help us grow. Illness can draw a family closer. Financial hardship can clarify a family’s values. Being forced to deal with our addictions and personal failures can draw us close to God.

On the societal level, wilderness moments can prove beneficial if wise leaders help us focus on common values and our need for mutual sacrifice. But in the absence of wise leaders, we are as likely to form a mob as a cleanup crew.

That’s where we seem to be now: led by the venal and short-sighted. And those who would play Moses have little more to offer than boycotts of Mickey Mouse and hateful words about”them.” This should be religion’s finest hour. People’s trust in golden calves is shaken. Nothing we have built with our own hands seems durable. Our souls cry out for hope and meaning. But religion will need to offer something more than hate and rejection, arguments over form, and the smugness of the self-declared”found.” Whether Monday’s plunge on Wall Street is a disturbing blip or the onset of a major collapse, we are reminded that life is fragile. When we turn to the mountain looking for hope, will we see a Moses bearing grace or a pamphleteer attacking whatever scapegoat wins applause?

MJP END EHRICH